


We Belong

by firefly124



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, M/M, canon levels of background Dean/Cas, set vaguely mid-s13, spoilers for early s13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 22:05:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14757149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefly124/pseuds/firefly124
Summary: Eileen Skypes Sam with a case: The Roadhouse is back, complete with Ellen, Jo, and Ash.  If it’s a trap, it’s the perfect bait, and Sam, Dean, Cas, and Jack go after it hook, line, and sinker.





	1. The Case

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamsfromthebunker (hit_the_books)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hit_the_books/gifts).



> This fic is for @dreamsfromthebunker, who won it with a generous bid for @fandomtrumpshate. I hope you enjoy it, @dreamsfromthebunker! Thanks to Gavroche_A for alpha reading and profound-boning for beta reading and helping to name this!

The first call, Sam had shrugged off. Robbie was known for hitting the sauce pretty hard, and he was getting up there in age. So if he'd found himself in some bar that reminded him of the Roadhouse, well, it wasn't surprising he'd thought it was real. He'd be pretty embarrassed once he woke up and got over his hangover, but that wasn't Sam's problem.

The second call was a little weird. Sam didn't know Letitia that well, but she'd never struck him as anything other than serious. She was also a relatively new hunter, though, so it wasn't like she'd known the Harvelles. Maybe someone had decided to open a new Roadhouse in honor of them? Calling themselves Ellen, Jo, and Ash was a bit much, though. He half-heartedly promised to look into it and definitely did not mention it to Dean. Maybe he'd find an excuse to go check it out on his own, but it wasn't going to be his top priority.

The Skype from Eileen changed everything. Completely.

"Sam, what do you know about the Roadhouse?" she asked, fingers stabbing the air in agitation.

"I know it burned down like over a decade ago," Sam said weakly. He kept his hand gesturing back over his shoulder a little longer than he meant to. It felt more like centuries than just a decade, though, so he supposed it worked. He thought he could be forgiven for being caught a little off-guard. Hell, he thought he could be forgiven for being in a state of semi-shock, at the moment. Eileen didn't seem to mind, though. "We lost friends that day. Lost Ellen and Jo a few years later."

"Exactly," she said. "So why did Jo just serve me a beer while Ash talked my eyes off about his latest program to auto-caption live news without, and I quote, 'craptions'?"

"Craptions?" Sam fingerspelled back at her. Well, it fit some of the stunningly bad typos he'd noticed since he'd started paying attention. He wondered if Ash was planning to sell this to the news stations or just give it to Eileen so she'd get better info for her own hunts. And how the hell was he accepting all this as normal so easily now? “Wait, you know the Roadhouse?”

“Of course! Ellen was always great about passing along leads on possible banshee sightings.” She smiled fondly.

Sam caught himself before asking more and shook his head. Whatever the hell was going on, this wasn't Ash. It wasn't Jo. It wasn't the Roadhouse. It wasn’t… And whatever it was, it was obviously big.

"What'cha doin' … Oh, hey, Eileen?" Dean crowded his face over Sam's shoulders, shooting Sam a look before turning the charm back on and his attention back to the screen. "Uh, caught any good cases lately?"

"I was just telling Sam," she said, "the Roadhouse is back. No EMF. Ash and Jo passed the silver test. The cleaning closet is full of detergent with borax in it."

Sam could practically feel Dean seething. He tried to head off the rage. "We'll be there to help you check it out."

"And whatever this is, we'll gank the hell out of it," Dean said. "Nobody fucks with our friends like that."

He stormed off and Sam watched for a second, worried. This was why he hadn't brought the rumors up before, but there was no help for it now. Dean was going to go in guns blazing, and that was likely to create its own problems. He turned back to the computer.

"Anything I should know?" Eileen asked, her brow furrowing adorably.

"It's… complicated." Sam sighed. He didn't know how he'd even begin to explain just exactly how complicated. It wasn't like words could even cover it.

"Isn't everything?" Eileen sighed too. "See you when you get here. Bye, Sam."

"Bye." Sam smiled and ended the call, head spinning.

Yeah, he would see her soon. So there was a bright side to all this. He hoped.


	2. The Roadhouse

It took some doing, but Sam managed to convince Dean to just drop him at the Roadhouse. Eileen was already there, after all, and someone should ask some questions around town. All four of them descending on the Roadhouse was unlikely to be more productive than just Sam going in. Besides, neither Cas nor Jack had seen anything beyond basic human perception when they'd dropped Sam off.

"That is odd," Cas said. "Surely this must be an illusion spell of some kind. However, I see nothing that would indicate such a thing."

"Maybe we could see more inside?" Jack suggested.

"No," Sam said. This was going to be tough, no two ways about it. But he was pretty sure he could hold it together. The second Dean saw Jo—or whatever was passing itself off as Jo—it would all be over. Sam had a better shot at holding his shit together. "I got this."

"You just don't want the rest of us with you while you catch up with Eileen," Dean said with an attempt at a grin that fell flat.

"Why would it matter if we were there?" Jack asked.

"I've found that is the sort of question it is best not to ask," Cas said, rolling his eyes.

And on that note, Sam got out of the car, letting Cas shift up to ride shotgun.

Everything about this Roadhouse looked the same as the one Sam remembered. Weathered wood on the outside. Well-worn but clean tables and bar inside. Ash sleeping on a pool table. If not for Eileen sitting at the bar and chatting up Ellen, Sam could swear this was the exact same as the first time he'd set foot in here, right down to the dust motes hanging in the air. Instead, he felt like he'd just stepped through the looking glass.

Eileen looked over at him at the same time Ellen did. A smile lit up her face as she waved him over.

"Hi, Eileen." Sam could feel a silly grin spreading across his face in spite of everything. "Long time no see, Ellen."

"Right back atcha," Ellen replied. She was wearing a denim shirt and had a cleaning rag slung over her shoulder. "What've you boys been up to?"

"Uh, when's the last time we saw you, again?" Sam stalled.

Ellen let out a huff of air and snapped the cleaning rag at him. "Boy, you think I can keep track of all you hunters' cases?"

"No, I guess not," Sam agreed with a laugh. Whoever…whatever this was, it was convincing.

She rolled her eyes at him. "Beer?"

"Sure, thanks." Sam accepted the bottle she handed him and then tried to decide what to do with it. He wasn't about to drink anything till he knew what was going on.

"It's just beer," Eileen said once Ellen had moved away. She took a sip of hers.

Sam shuddered. He wasn't ready to trust any of this that much.

"I haven't been able to get anything too specific from her either," Eileen said. "When I mentioned the last case I remember talking to her about, she seemed to remember it, but…"

"Kind of like someone with a bad memory trying to get by?" Sam asked.

"Exactly," Eileen agreed with a grimace. "What do you think is going on?"

"Have any other hunters stopped in?" Sam asked. "Anyone you know?"

"Just regular people from town," Eileen replied. "They don't stay long, though. I can't tell if they realize how weird this is or not. I've asked a couple of people questions but..."

"They don't want to talk to outsiders," Sam finished. It was probably more than that, which pissed him off almost as much as whatever the hell was going on here, but he decided to focus his anger on the thing he could (at least theoretically) do something about. People being generally shitty was way out of his control. "Jack seems to be pretty good at getting people to talk to him. Maybe he'll get somewhere."

"You brought Jack?" Eileen's eyes widened. "You sure that's a good idea?"

Sam shrugged to cover his unease. "If it's a trap, then we'll spring it and deal with it."

"I guess." She didn't look convinced.

Sam didn't blame her. Lucifer might be powered down, but that didn't mean he wasn't a threat, and they hadn't been able to get a bead on him in weeks. And then there was Asmodeus. But why either of them would pick the Roadhouse as their bait…

Well, no. Lucifer would definitely do that. He'd made Sam relive that day enough times in the Cage. Made him watch Jo bleeding out, feel the heat of the explosion as she and Ellen kept the Hellhounds off his and Dean's trail. Yeah, he knew exactly how much this would hurt. But how the hell would he pull something like this off? At full strength, sure. Anything Gabriel could do, Lucifer could certainly do better. Or worse. An alternate reality bubble was probably nothing for him. But according to Cas, he'd been bled of a lot of his grace and it took a lot for him to manage some pretty basic stuff, like escaping Asmodeus' jail cell. So, maybe he _would_ do this, but it didn't seem like he _could_.

If Lucifer was behind this, his goal was almost certainly Jack. Sam could only hope they hadn't just handed him over.


	3. The Town

The first few people Dean had asked about the Roadhouse had barely answered him before scurrying away. It reminded him eerily of that time in Sioux Falls during the Apocalypse, when people’s dead relatives were coming back to them. The whole town had known something was off but, since it looked like a good thing, they didn't want it to go away.

At least this time it wasn't a sign of the apocalypse. Probably. Then again, who knew these days?

Jack was fascinated. Of course, he was fascinated with everything.

"So, they know the Roadhouse was here before," Jack said, staring out the window of the Impala. "And they know it burned down eleven years ago?"

"Most of them probably knew Ellen, Jo, and Ash," Dean agreed. "The Roadhouse isn't exactly in town, but this is where they'd have come for supplies and such."

"And yet none of them question why the building is suddenly back and their neighbors are suddenly alive?" Cas asked. "Humans will never cease to amaze me."

"We like things to make sense," Dean said. "Lots of people, if it don't make sense and ain't causing a problem, they'll ignore it."

Cas shot him a disbelieving look, and Dean shrugged. He pulled the car into a small parking lot and killed the engine. It's not like he and Sam were immune, exactly. They'd just seen it all go to shit too often to give in to the urge to just go along.

"Why are we stopping at a…’wellness center for mind, body, and spirit’?" Jack asked as he peered at the sign.

"It's a long shot," Dean said. "I don't even know if this was here eleven years ago. But sometimes people in places like this know about our line of work. Just…follow my lead."

The front door and windows were free of any symbols that would have advertised that this was the sort of new-agey place that was seriously hunter-friendly. That made it about seventy-five percent less likely for them to find anything useful here, but the crystals and crap on display did leave that twenty-five percent possibility. So, yeah, bad odds as usual, but Dean wasn't about to let any stone go unturned.

A bell rang as he opened the door and the three of them walked inside. It looked like your typical new-age shop: crystals everywhere, books on auras and tarot cards, even a rack of flowy dresses and robes. There was incense burning; sandalwood, if Dean wasn't mistaken, though it smelled a little flowery, too. There was a tabletop fountain with a statue of a goddess pouring water from a vase.

Jack picked up a few of the colorful rocks, then got distracted by the shelf of tarot cards. Dean decided to leave him to it. Should keep him out of trouble.

Cas, on the other hand, was absorbed in the book collection. If there was anything useful there, he was sure to spot it, or so Dean hoped. At least he shouldn't think Lady Sparkly Unicorn's latest work on ‘ancient Irish potato spells’ was their kind of thing.

A young woman came through a beaded curtain, a smile on her face. Her hair was shoulder-length, black, and curly. She wore a number of necklaces and rings with various occult symbols, but that could just be marketing.

"May I help you, gentlemen?"

"We're just passing through," Dean said, pasting on his best smile. "Thought your place looked interesting, figured we'd check it out."

"Well, feel free to look around," she said. "Just be careful with the statues and things. You break it, you bought it."

Dean chuckled and nodded. He crossed his arms on the counter and looked at the wall behind the shopkeeper. He saw signs for a number of services. Massage. Readings. Something called Reiki. That must be why the building was so much larger than the shop. There were probably rooms upstairs for that stuff.

"You offer readings here?" he asked. "You psychic?"

"That's a loaded question," she replied. "I read tarot, and I'm sensitive to people's energies. I don't give out lottery numbers, though."

"Well, so much for that," Dean said with another little laugh.

She looked unimpressed. "Are you interested in a reading?"

"Actually, what I think we're all going to be interested in soon is lunch," he said. "You know, I think we passed someplace on the way into town. Looked a bit run-down, but sometimes those are the best places."

"You mean the Roadhouse?" The shopkeeper's eyes narrowed. "Can't say I've eaten there recently."

Bingo.

"But maybe you have in the past," he pressed. "Say, eleven or twelve years ago?"

Her eyes flashed and her jaw clenched. Dean figured she was about a half second from throwing them all out.

"Who are you?" she asked, her voice low.

"Friends of the owner," Dean said. He let the fake smile slide from his face. "The _late_ owner."

"Hunters," she muttered under her breath. None of the tension left her face. In fact, her shoulders squared off even more.

"Guilty as charged," he agreed. His hackles were up now, as much as hers were. He didn't think she was involved, but he was starting to think she might actually know something. "What can you tell me?"

Her eyes darted to Cas, then Jack, then back to Dean.

"Look," he said, lowering his voice, "unless you're the one who up and desecrated their memory, we're not gonna hurt you. We're not in the business of bothering people who don't bother anyone else."

She didn't look convinced, but she waved him around the counter and over to what appeared to be an office nested into a wall. The desk was against the wall next to the door, presumably so she could see into the store while working. He waited until she sat in the swivel chair before taking a seat himself in the folding chair she offered.

"So, this started a few days ago," she said. "At first, I just thought someone had finally bought the lot and was building something new."

"Go on."


	4. Back at the Roadhouse

Sam excused himself to the bathroom, and Eileen waved Ellen over for another beer.

"Sure thing, sweetie," Ellen said. Then she winked and continued, "So, how long has this been going on?"

"Excuse me?" Eileen replied. She wondered if she'd read Ellen wrong. She tended to forget and kept her mouth a bit closed, so sometimes she was difficult to follow. Or maybe Ellen did realize there was something wrong here.

"You and Sam," Ellen said with a little smile. "Never did think he'd find someone to settle down with."

"Oh!" Eileen felt her eyes grow wide. Not what she'd thought at all. "No, we're not…"

Just then, Sam slid back onto his stool.

"We're not what?" he asked.

"On a case," Eileen replied quickly. "We're not on a case right now."

"Right," Sam agreed after a beat. "Just relaxing between one thing and the next."

"Well, good for you," Ellen said. She looked at Eileen, Sam, and Eileen again. "You should think about doing that more often. Your brother and that angel around?"

Sam's eyes widened slightly at that. "Uh, yeah. They'll probably be by later."

"Good." Ellen nodded. "The lot of you shouldn't be such strangers."

With that, she turned and went back into the kitchen.

"What?" Eileen asked.

"Ellen didn't meet Cas until a couple of years after the Roadhouse burned," Sam said. "So, whatever this thing is, it doesn't have all the facts. But it does have at least some of her memories."

Eileen nodded. None of this was getting them any closer to figuring out what was actually going on, though.

Sam looked at something over Eileen's shoulder, so she turned to see what it was. Jo and Ash had just settled into one of the booths with some kind of electronic contraption. Eileen had already spoken with both of them but she wanted Sam's first conversation with them to be private. When he nodded in their direction, Eileen shook her head and opted to stay put. She could keep trying to figure out Ellen in the meantime.

~*~

"Hey, man, long time no see!" Sam slapped "Ash" on the shoulder and sat down next to him.

"Could say the same to you, amigo," Ash replied, smirking. "Where you been?"

"Yeah, Sam," Jo said, reaching across the table to punch him in the arm. "Where have you been?"

"You know." He shrugged. "The usual. Chasing cases all over the place."

"Anything good?" Jo asked.

Sam shrugged again. "Nothing worth telling."

Ash scoffed and fiddled with something on his…whatever it was.

"Now that looks pretty interesting to me," Sam said. And it was. In fact, it looked an awful lot like the thing the real Ash had built in heaven to follow the chatter on angel radio. "What does it do?"

"Right now? Nothing," Ash said. "What it's supposed to do, now that's the question."

Nobody said anything for a beat, and Jo glared at Sam.

"Uh, right. So, what's it supposed to do?" Sam asked finally.

"So glad you asked." Ash grinned. "It's supposed to track angelic activity and communication. But considering you just told Ellen there's an angel in town and it didn't give as much as a blip, clearly, it doesn't actually work yet."

Sam supposed that was fair. But how would Ash even know about…then again, for him to be fluent in Enochian, Ash would have had to be pretty up on angels before he died. No, the real question was why this thing that stole Ash's living memories somehow decided to start building something the real Ash had only managed once he was in heaven.

"Hey, Ash," Sam said, as an idea hit him, "a while back, you said you had some important information for Dean and me. But that you could only tell us in person."

Ash set down his tools. "Well, yeah. I warned you Old Yellow Eyes was laying a trap for you. Hooked you up with an amulet to keep you off his radar until you could get in position to kill him."

"Right." Sam nodded. "Just…can't thank you enough for that, man. You really saved the day, there."

"You don't know the half of it," Ash replied. "Never did get to tell you the rest. Do you know he was trying some apocalyptic-level shit? For real, dude. So, you and the world are totally welcome."

Sam swallowed. He was starting to get a really sick feeling that he knew what was going on. He forced himself to smile and carry on small talk until finally his phone buzzed. It was Dean, so he excused himself.

"Dude, I think I know what's going on," he said when he answered. "The reason none of them test as ghosts or shifters…"

"…is they're the real deal," Dean finished, "just from another dimension. Yeah, we got there too."

"That's…what do we even do with that?" Sam asked. He turned to look back over at Jo and Ash, then to where Ellen and Eileen were talking. He didn't think he could imagine a more surreal scene if he tried. Exactly how many parallel universes were they dealing with, anyway?

"Hell if I know, Sammy," Dean replied, and Sam didn't even bother correcting him.

This just got even weirder than usual.


	5. Research

Under better circumstances, Eileen figured they would have met up at the Roadhouse to discuss the case.  As it was, the Roadhouse _was_ their case and they had to squeeze into one of their motel rooms instead.  Sam moved the table to between the beds and arranged the chairs so that they could make something vaguely like a circle.  Eileen gave him a smile as she chose the seat that gave her the best view of the rest of the group.

"If you are correct, these people come from a world in which Azazel's plan was thwarted and the apocalypse never happened," Cas said.  He signed as he spoke, which Eileen appreciated.  "But they haven't figured out they're not in their own world?"

"No, they haven't."  Eileen shook her head.  "That's the part I don't understand.  Shouldn't they be watching the news for cases?  And wouldn't they see other stuff that would tell them this is a different world?"

"Well, we know humans in general are good at not seeing what they don't want to.  Maybe hunters aren't as immune as we like to think," Sam said.  His fingers were slow to catch up as he spelled out "immune," almost stuttering over the letters.

"No matter what they think about it," Jack asked, "if they're not hurting anyone, do we really need to do anything?"

"I mean, they deserve to be in their own world," Eileen replied.  She couldn't imagine finding herself in the wrong world and not being able to get back to everyone she cared about.  "At some point they'll figure it out and want to go home."

"And when's the last time anything like this happened without a price tag?" Dean asked.  "Never, that's when.  And before you say 'Mom,' the price tag came before that time instead of after."

Sam nodded at that.

"Is it possible that… the walls between worlds are just getting weaker?" Eileen asked.  A year ago, she'd never have even thought of such a thing, but a year ago Jack hadn't even been conceived.  Now it seemed anything was possible.  "Could things be bleeding through without anyone necessarily trying to do anything?"

Dean scrubbed a hand over his face before answering.  "Yeah.  Billie did say something like that, actually."

"What?  When?" Sam asked.  "I know she said there'd be cosmic consequences for breaking that deal with her, but nothing about worlds…bleeding into each other."

"When I was dead," Dean admitted.  He lowered his head, and Eileen missed whatever else he might have added.

"When you were what?" Eileen, Cas, and Jack asked.

Dean raised his head and looked right at Eileen.  "Sorry.  I said Billie's the new Death.  As in horseman.  Horsewoman?  Whatever.  That's the cosmic consequence, far as I can tell: the first reaper killed after Death dies becomes the new Death."

"You think _that's_ our 'cosmic consequence'?" Sam asked, his eyebrows reaching for his hairline.  "When have we _ever_ been that lucky?"

"And the part where you were dead?" Eileen asked.

"Again?" Cas added.  He looked furious enough to smite something.

Dean exchanged a look with Sam, then shrugged and told them about a house full of ghost-children.  Apparently, he thought stopping his own heart to talk to the ghosts on their own turf was a reasonable plan. He ended up talking to the new Death (and what was her life that she could even think that sentence?) and bargaining for the kids to be set free so their souls could go to heaven.  And she'd warned him about poking around other dimensions.

"Do you think," Cas asked, hands very precisely jabbing out the words as he spoke, "that this might have been important information to share, Dean?"

"Well, yeah."  Dean ran his fingers through his hair.  "But then all of a sudden you were alive, and then stuff just kept happening."

"Yeah, Dean," Sam said, "stuff that involved _trying to open a connection to the apocalypse world!"_

"Oh, and would it have stopped you if I told you?" Dean asked.  "I'll tell you right now:  no.  Because we had to get Mom back and we could deal with the consequences later."

That stung.  Eileen would give anything for the opportunity to meet her own mother.  She didn't begrudge Sam getting his mother back, but the unfairness still hurt.

"May I point out that these appear to be the consequences?" Cas asked.  He still looked mad, but he was still taking care to face Eileen and sign as he spoke.  "How do we plan to deal with them?  Opening more rifts sounds like a recipe for even more weakening of the barriers between worlds."

"That's the question," Eileen said, nodding.  "Anybody have any answers?"

None of them had anything to say to that.

"There's one thing that I don't get," Dean said after a moment.

"Just one?" Sam asked.

"Shut it, bitch," Dean said.  "The chick at the wellness-center-slash-new-age-place said that she saw building equipment one day and the Roadhouse the next.  If it just slipped through a crack between universes, wouldn't it have just sort of popped into existence?"

"That does suggest that someone may have been actively planning something on this side," Cas agreed.  "That only raises more questions.  Who?  Why?  And is this what they were trying to do or were they aiming for something else?"

"So, research," Eileen said.  "Just like any other case."

Sam nodded slowly, his expression unreadable.  Dean, Cas, and Jack followed suit.

"Then let's get to it," she said before reaching into her bag to pull out her laptop.

~*~

Just researching the case turned out to be more complicated than it sounded.  Sam ran into a brick wall almost right away.

"So get this: nobody filed any building permits," he said, looking up from his laptop.  "Which, okay, obviously this wouldn't have been on the up-and-up, but also nobody from the town investigated."

"Maybe the Roadhouse is just far enough out of town that they weren't paying attention?" Dean asked.

"That stuff tends to get noticed, though," Eileen said.  "The town wants their taxes, right?"

"Right," Sam said with a sigh.  "Now, only a couple of days passed between the equipment showing up and the Roadhouse, right?"

"That's what she said," Dean replied.  "And before you ask, no particularly 'auspicious' astrological crap was going on."

"In this world," Jack pointed out.

"Huh."  Sam thought about that for a minute.  "How would someone figure out what was going on in the skies of some other world?  Dreamwalker?"

"Derek's paintings did include constellations," Jack replied.  "But he didn't know what they meant to the people who lived there."

"You think maybe this was a case of someone trying to get home?" Dean asked.

"I don't think so," Eileen said.  "Why the building equipment, then?"

"Maybe they needed it for the spell?" Sam suggested.  He knew it sounded weak, but they were really just spitballing at this point.

"When is the last time you saw a spell that called for a backhoe?" Dean asked.

"Whoever it was," Cas said, "they obviously didn't care about being noticed.  Either because they thought they would be gone before anyone investigated…"

"Or because nothing scares them," Dean finished.  "Either they're stupid, or they've got nothing to lose."

"Or they're very powerful," Jack added.

Well, that wasn’t a pleasant thought.  It was true, though.

"An archangel can manifest a fake world," Sam said slowly.  "Hell, even Zachariah managed it."

"He said it wasn't fake," Dean put in.  "That was an actual alternate world, too, assuming he wasn't a liar as well as a douchebag."

"So even pre-fall, a rank-and-file angel probably couldn't pull off something like this, then," Sam said.  "And as far as we know, the only archangel around is Lucifer, and he's running so low on juice he's draining other angels."

"None of which is getting us any closer to figuring out who could have done this," Eileen said.  "We have a guess as to why, but it's only a guess.  Would they have needed a dreamwalker to help them?"

"Perhaps that is a typical ability in their world," Cas said.  "Just because few cultures have valued and preserved the skill here does not mean other worlds might not have embraced it more universally.  They may, themselves, be what we would call a dreamwalker and consider it nothing unusual."

"If it was that common, wouldn't people know how not to randomly end up stuck in other worlds?" Sam asked.  He knew the answer as soon as he heard himself ask the question.

"Like people don't do stupid shit all the time when they should know better?" Dean asked.  "Besides, if Billie's right, the rules might be changing."

"Yeah, there's that."  Sam rested his chin on his palm and looked over to where Eileen had ducked her head again to look through whatever she could on her laptop that they hadn't already.  "If we run with the idea that this person might have some way to see where they're going and just needs the key to get back, then, what?  Do we just go stake out the Roadhouse?"

"We could go back and get some dinner," Eileen said.  She had shut her laptop and was staring at him.  "Besides, they're hunters, or close enough.  In denial or not, they've got to have some idea that something's not right."

"Yeah, sure," Dean said.  "What the hell.  We've got nothing else.  Not really."

"You sure about that?" Sam asked.  Even knowing that these didn't seem to be deliberate impostors, it was hard seeing and speaking to them.  He was having a hell of a time dealing with it, and he still wasn't sure how Dean would handle it.  Besides, the idea of eating or drinking anything there spooked the hell out of him.

"I'm good," Dean said with a shrug.  He stood up and pulled his jacket on.  "Let's go."

Eileen laid a hand on Sam's arm, sending a jolt through him.  It was all he could do to keep from jumping, but he turned to look at her instead.

"My car?" she signed without speaking.

"You know," Sam said, "five's gonna be a tight squeeze in the Impala.  I'll ride with Eileen."

Dean made a face that was probably supposed to be a smirk but ended up more of a grimace.  He didn't say anything, though, just pulled out his keys and led Cas and Jack out of the room.

"What's up?" Sam asked once they were gone.

"There's some reason you're worried about Dean going there," she said.  "So I don't want to give them too big a head start, but I need you to bring me up to speed."


	6. Dinner

There was a little more business at the Roadhouse when Eileen and Sam arrived.  Dean hadn't started a fight as far as Eileen could see, so she figured they'd made good enough time, even with the head start they'd given him and the others.  He, Cas, and Jack had grabbed a booth, and they waved Sam and Eileen over as soon as they came in.  The table was well-worn and so were the booth seats, but they were comfortable enough.  Familiar-feeling even.

"What, no beers yet?" Eileen asked.

"Who says we're not waiting for our second round?" Dean asked.  His smirk was back, but the lines around his mouth and eyes were tight.  Sam was right:  this was tougher on him.

Jo came over and took their orders, and Sam told some story about the old Roadhouse and Ash that got Dean to laugh.  Cas and Jack both just looked confused.  They were so alike that it was hard to remember sometimes that Castiel was technically Jack's uncle, or whatever angels might call it, not his father.

"I don't understand.  Why is longer hair considered a party?"  Jack looked at each of them in turn.  "Eileen, does that mean your hair is a party?  Sam?"

"No," Eileen replied.  Though, as she looked at Sam's, she supposed she could see an argument to be made there.

"I believe it is one of those cultural references that will only begin to make sense with sufficient exposure," Cas said.  "A simple explanation of the origins will not accomplish much, in my experience."

"Oh."  Jack appeared to consider this.  "Okay then."

Dean looked much more relaxed, if still not quite his usual self, which Eileen thought had probably been Sam's goal all along.

The other dinner patrons looked like they were probably locals.  Either people were getting over their discomfort with the Roadhouse's reappearance or…actually, she wasn't sure what else that might mean.  They could be passing through.  What was most important, as far as she was concerned, was that none of them looked like hunters.  Not that you could always tell, but Eileen had got pretty good at that over the years.  She'd had to.

When their dinner came out, it was delicious.  Just like Eileen had remembered.  The burgers were juicy, the fries were greasy, and the coleslaw had that tang that Ellen had always said was from some secret family recipe.  Dean and Jack had got bacon on theirs, and the smoky scent was the same hickory Eileen remembered.  Of course, that wasn't too unusual.  Lots of people used hickory-smoked bacon in the States.  But apparently they did in whatever world this Roadhouse had come from, too, assuming all the supplies had come with them.

That prompted a wild thought.  What if there was some subtle difference in what was actually in food in their world?  It sounded like the plot of some science fiction show for people to start dropping like flies because the food here had some molecule that wasn't compatible with humans in this world, but then, this whole thing was like an episode of _Doctor Who_.  Nobody had dropped dead while eating here, though, so that was just a ridiculous idea.

"What?" Sam signed as he chewed on his burger.  He must have read some of that bizarre train of thought on her face.

Eileen shook her head and replied, "It's nothing.  Later."

The air to her left shifted, and Eileen looked over to see Jo had come back.

"You good?" she asked.

Eileen smiled and nodded, then asked, "Is this the usual crowd this time of night?"

Jo looked over the room and back.  She shrugged.  "I guess.  Few new faces.  Why?"

"Just wondering.  They should be lining up out the door for these."  Eileen held up her burger.

"We should hire you to do our marketing," Jo replied.

"Maybe someday," Eileen said with a smile, "when I decide to retire."

Jo looked from Eileen to Sam and back and asked, "You making plans to?"

"Not anytime soon."  Eileen hoped her cheeks didn't look as warm as they felt.  Apparently Jo had the same idea Ellen did.  Eileen hadn't thought she was that transparent.

Jo raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything else, just went on to the next table.  Eileen felt a tap on her arm.

"So, what's our play?" Sam asked.

"Let's finish our dinner," she said.  "Then when Jo comes around again, see if we can get her talking a bit more."

Dean gave a thumbs-up, which Eileen appreciated considering how full his mouth was.

 

~*~

 

"I know at least one of you wants a slice of Mom's apple pie," Jo said, winking at Dean.  "The question is, how many more?  Or should I just bring a whole pie and let you fight it out?"

"If you do that, you know Dean's just going to eat the whole thing," Sam pointed out.

"I won't let him," Eileen put in.  "I think we're safe."

Jo's expression clouded briefly, and Eileen knew she'd chosen her words well.

"What's wrong?" Eileen asked.

"Wrong?"  Jo shook her head and her shoulders shook with a little laugh.  She reached over and grabbed the plates they'd already stacked for her.  "Nothing.  Be right back with the pie."

"It looks like you were right," Jack said.  "She knows something isn't right."

Castiel nodded.  Sam did too.  Dean looked less convinced.  Good.  They needed at least one of them skeptical.

Jo returned with the pie and five plates, the rich scent of sharp apples and warm spices quickly filling up the space. Eileen put a hand on her arm to stop her turning to leave.

"Jo," she asked, "have you noticed anything strange lately?"

Jo hesitated, shooting a glance around the room and then back to them.  "Sort of?  It's nothing I can put my finger on, just everything seems a little bit..."

"Off?" Dean asked.

"Yeah."  Jo grabbed a chair from a nearby table and sat down at the end of their booth.  "Like, see Mr. Granger over there?  The guy who owns the feed store?"

Eileen and the others looked over at the man who was wearing denim from head to toe and laughing with Ellen at the bar.

"Just last year, he lost a finger on his left hand in a freak accident," she said softly.  "I'm glad he's got it back, but… how?"

"Perhaps he encountered an angel," Cas offered.  "Had I known that had happened to a friend of yours, I would have wished to heal him."

Jo smiled weakly.  "But would you make it so he didn't even remember it happened?"

"I would prefer not to," Cas admitted.  "Unless the memory was so traumatic that he asked, of course."

Dean looked uncomfortable at that, and Eileen wondered what the story was there.  That was a question for some other time, though.

"I guess it could've been something like that."  Jo didn't look convinced.  "But there's been other weird little things like that.  None of it's bad, exactly.  Just off.  And then there's Ash's machine."

"His angel tracker?" Sam asked.  "Has he gotten it working?"

"That's the thing."  Jo sighed.  "It was working, or he thought it was, up until a few days ago.  He thought maybe the angels had just gone radio silent, but then we found out you were in town, Cas, and he knew it wasn't working at all."

"Angel radio has been quite active, in fact," Cas said.  "Perhaps his machine simply needs to be set to a different frequency."

"You'd have to talk to him about that side of things," Jo said.  "I thought he said angels only used the one frequency, but maybe he was wrong.  Or maybe I misunderstood."

Jo looked over her shoulder and Eileen saw that someone at another table was calling for her.  She stood up and replaced the chair at its table.

"Gotta run.  Lemme know if you see anything weird?" Jo asked.

"You know it," Dean said.  Once she was gone, he grabbed a piece of pie and started eating it.

Eileen grabbed a piece for herself and munched on it thoughtfully.  Just like everything else, this tasted the same as she remembered.  Ellen always added nutmeg to the crust, which gave it a warm, distinctive flavor.

"What do you think?" Sam asked.

"I think I want to see this machine," Jack said.  "Whatever frequency this 'Ash' has it set for might tell us something useful about their world."

"I agree," Cas said.  "Angels speak on a frequency that resonates with the seed sound of the universe, or at least, we do here.  If their world functions in the same way, then knowing that frequency could be very useful."

"Any chance he accidentally opened a rift messing around with frequencies on it?" Dean asked.

"Not if the thing just receives," Sam said.  "I mean, wouldn't it have to project a frequency of some kind in order to actively cause something like that?"

"Yes," Cas replied.

Eileen pondered that.  It made sense.  Also, an accident such as Dean was suggesting wouldn't have caused equipment to appear before the Roadhouse itself.  It still seemed that whatever had happened, it had originated from this side, whether accidentally or on purpose.

"If 'angel radio' works like that," Eileen said, "then Ash should probably be the most suspicious, right?"

"That would make sense," Jack said.

"It would," Cas agreed, "though the human capacity for self-deception is truly awe-inspiring, as evidenced by this entire situation."

"Ash was always a bit of a conspiracy nut," Dean said, waving a bite of pie around on his fork.  "He might be over-suspicious, but never under."

"True," Sam agreed.  "Wonder where he is."

"Probably trying to fix his machine," Eileen said with a shrug.  "What else?"

"Then let's finish up here and go find him," Jack said.

"I'm game," Dean said, reaching for the pie plate Sam had pulled to the far end of the table.  "Dibs on the last piece."


	7. Ash’s Machine

"Gotta say, Castiel, it's an honor to finally meet you," Ash said.  He extended a hand, which Castiel shook.

Sam wasn't sure what to make of that.  If they'd killed Azazel before the whole showdown, then the whole sequence of events leading to Cas needing to pull Dean out of hell shouldn't have happened.  How would Ash have even heard of him, then?  Sam didn't like the idea that it had been that written into their fates that it all would have kept on anyway.

"I am pleased to make your acquaintance as well," Cas replied.  "And I confess to being profoundly curious about this machine you have been working on."

"Not much to be curious about, seeing as it's not working," Ash said, running his fingers through his hair.  "Dunno why, though, considering it seemed like it was working just fine a few days ago."

"That is…curious," Cas agreed.  "However, it may be working more efficiently than you think.  May I see how you have attempted to capture the frequencies of 'angel radio'?"

"Angel radio.  I like that."  Ash nodded.  "Sure, if you come over here…"

Sam tuned out the technobabble.  Dean might be able to make something of it, but Sam was more about the software than the hardware.  In any case, Dean joined Cas in following Ash to his worktable.  Jack naturally followed.  Not wanting to crowd them any more than they already were, Sam hung back with Eileen.

Ash's workroom was really a corner of Ellen's storage room.  Just a table that had seen better days (one leg literally duct taped on) with a chair to match (though no duct tape) surrounded by shelves and pallets with everything from salt and pepper to take-out containers.  On the table was a very familiar-looking device, though Sam supposed there were only so many ways something meant to receive angelic frequencies could look.

"What prompted your desire to create such a device?" Cas asked.

"Well, uh, no offense," Ash said, "but ever since the Fall, seems like there's been more trouble with angels than demons and monsters put together."

"None taken."  Cas exchanged a look with Dean who looked up at Sam.

Yeah, how the hell the Fall had still happened was another mystery.  More questions they'd probably never get answers to.

"Did you get anything interesting before it went silent?" Dean asked.

Jack was being oddly quiet, but he was also staring at the device so intently Sam thought he might drill a hole in it.

"There were a couple of angels that the others were worried about," Ash said.  "Hadraniel and Zadkiel, specifically.  You got any idea what might be up with them?"

"Possibly," Cas said after what Sam thought was a rather long moment.  "First, to test a theory, may I suggest you adjust your receiver up approximately 3.175 megahertz?"

"I mean I could."  Ash scrunched up his forehead.  "What good would that do, though?  You angels just use the one frequency."

"Humor me," was all Cas said in response to that.  The lines around his eyes and mouth were tighter than usual.

Ash shrugged and fiddled with several dials.  "Like I said, they were worried those two, specifically: Hadraniel and Zadkiel.  Why, you know what is up with them?"

"Depending upon what effect this adjustment has, I may," Cas hedged.

"What are they doing?" Eileen asked.

Sam updated her as best he could without outright saying what Cas was looking for.  He could tell that she made the connection, though.  He loved the way she could do that.  Half the time she was leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of them.  And if the tone of that thought was a little close to some things he wasn't ready to deal with yet, well, he could deal with that later.  Much later.

A shriek of noise screeched through the room before Ash turned it down.  Everyone but Eileen and Cas covered their ears.

"Son of a bitch," Dean said.

"I don't get it," Ash said.  "Why would they change frequency like that?  It's not like it's arbitrary."

"No, it isn't," Cas agreed.  "It is tied to the signature of the universe."

"You telling me that changed?" Ash asked.  His eyebrows shot up.  "Because that's a whole new level of weird.  Change the signature of the universe, and you've changed the actual universe."

Sam held his breath, hoping he'd put the pieces together.

"Unless..."  Ash flipped open his laptop and tapped furiously at the keys for a minute.  Loud static filled the room.  "How the hell...?  The background noise from SETI's all shifted too.  Which shouldn't be able to just _happen_.  So we're in some other universe?  How?"

"We think that somehow the Roadhouse and everyone in it at the time slipped from a parallel universe into ours," Sam said.  "Most things are just close enough that you weren't able to tell."

"And given what you have just told us was the last thing you heard from within your universe," Cas said, "I believe it may be the doing of those two angels.  Angels who, I might add, are no longer alive in this universe."

Shit.  That explained Cas’ weirdness.  Sam swallowed back whatever sympathy he wanted to offer.  He could do that later.

"Parallel universe."  Ash closed his eyes and tilted his head upwards, thinking. "Yeah, that would actually make a lot of sense."

"Then you have noticed that things are different here," Eileen said.

"Well, yeah," Ash replied.  "But, to be fair, I thought I might've just gotten a bad bag, if you know what I mean."

"No, I do not…" Cas started.

Jack elbowed Cas and said, "We know what you mean."

"We do?" Cas asked.

"The rest of us do," Dean said.  He cleared his throat.  "Point is, yeah, the stuff you've noticed, it is really different.  For one thing, you never got to tell us about Azazel."

"I never got to…wait, what happened?" Ash asked.  He looked at Dean, then Sam.

"You kind of, um, died," Sam admitted.

"And the Roadhouse got torched," Dean added.

"Wait, so…Ellen?  And Jo?" Ash asked.  Up until now, he'd just looked confused and maybe kind of overwhelmed.  Now he looked like he was in physical pain.

"Not then," Sam replied.  "But a couple years later, yeah."

"Damn."  Ash bowed his head for a second, then squared his shoulders and looked back at Sam.  "So what's your theory beyond maybe those two angels?"

"Best guess is they slipped through either trying to get back to heaven or just by total accident," Dean said.  "And when they tried to get home, somehow they pulled the Roadhouse through instead."

"Or at the same time," Jack said.  "We don't know where they are.  They might have made it back to their universe."

"You’re thinking the equal and opposite reaction pulled through the Roadhouse and everyone in it?" Ash asked.  He cut his eyes diagonally upward.  "Yeah, guess I can see that."

"Is he serious?" Eileen asked.

"I'm never sure," Sam admitted.  It did make sense, though.  Angels were gigantic beings, even though that was easy to forget when they were in human vessels.

"Of course I'm serious!"  Ash looked offended.  "Angels make up a hell of a lot more mass than humans.  The Roadhouse plus three humans is actually kind of smaller than I would've expected in exchange."

"This begs the question of what would happen if we attempt to reverse this," Cas said.  "Considering the warning Billie gave Dean about the barriers between worlds, if we attempt to return everything to the way it was, would that further imbalance the entire system?"

"What, you want to send us back?" Ash demanded.  "Thanks a lot, guys.  Missed you too."

"We do miss you," Dean snapped.  "We’ve been missing you for almost a decade, dude!  But don't you want to be in your own world?  Now that you know you're not?"

"Not sure I care, amigo."  Ash shrugged.  "Ellen and Jo might, though."

"If it's just a matter of keeping balance," Eileen asked, "why the Roadhouse?"

"If we're right about the equipment," Dean said, "then they were planning their ritual on the site it used to occupy.  That might have been enough."

"But why would they pick that site?" Eileen asked.  Her hands cut the end of each word off sharply.  "It seems kind of pushing it to think it was random.  Why would they choose someplace that caters to hunters?"

"This building is heavily warded," Cas pointed out.  "Ours must have been as well.  That leaves a resonance in the land.  You noticed that as we drew close to town, Jack."

"Yeah, I just didn't know what it was until you explained it," Jack agreed.

"They may simply have been drawn to the location as a place of power," Cas said, "hoping that the residual echo would add power to their working."

"Your hypothesis about dreamwalking doesn't hold, though," Sam said.  "Unless it's an ability the angels of that world have, but not so much humans?"

"That is possible," Cas agreed.  "Or they simply do not need any particular cosmic arrangement on that side.  That was always a possibility."

"Do we even know if they got back?" Dean asked.  "I mean, do we have a couple of rogue angels to hunt down before they start wreaking havoc?"

"Good question," Eileen said.  "How do we find out?"

"I could attempt to contact them," Cas said.  "If they reply, that would answer our question."

"Yeah, and put you on their radar," Dean growled.  "Not liking this plan."

"It's not a plan," Cas said calmly, "merely an observation.  Besides, I believe it is likely their ritual was successful."

"Do we really want to go hunting angels who aren't actually causing trouble, assuming they're even still here?" Sam asked.  "Seems like we've got enough on our plates as it is."

"I'm going to go talk to Ellen," Eileen said.  "We're going around in circles here.  I think it's time to bring in some new ideas."

"I'll go with you," Sam said, but Eileen held up a hand to stop him.  He started to protest, but she just shook her head and turned to go back upstairs.

What the hell just happened?  And why, when it seemed like they might be getting close to some answers, did it feel like everything was spiraling out of control?

 


	8. Offering a Choice

When Eileen got back upstairs, the clientele had largely changed over.  Most were now younger and crowding the bar rather than lounging at tables and booths.  Ellen had her hands full, but she didn't appear hurried at all.

Eileen grabbed a stool at the extreme end of the bar, close to the entrance to the kitchen.  Ellen came over and gave her a smile.

"Ash done showing off his science project, then?  What'll you have?" Ellen asked.

"Actually, I was hoping I could talk to you.  I know it's a little busy, but…"  Eileen swept her hands out to encompass everything she couldn't say with civilians (or anyone) around.

Ellen held up a finger, then turned and stuck her head in the kitchen.  Jo came out drying her hands on a small towel that she slung over her shoulder before walking directly to the taps and pouring a beer.  Ellen waved to Eileen to join her in the kitchen.

Once they were in the back, Ellen asked, "What's this about then?  Is it a case or is it Sam?"

"Sam?" Eileen asked.  "Why would it be about Sam?"

"Oh sweetie," Ellen said.  "The two of you are almost as bad as Dean and that angel of his.  Give it a bit more time, and I'm sure you'll catch up."

Eileen felt her cheeks warm at that.  "That's not… not what I wanted to talk to you about.  Now."

Ellen's lips twitched at the "now."

"Have you noticed anything strange in the past few days?" Eileen asked.

"You mean like regular customers suddenly being healed of old wounds and Ash's angel-eavesdropper suddenly not working around the same time?  Yeah, I noticed."  Ellen's shoulders dropped.  "Wasn't about to complain when it seemed like some things were going right instead of wrong."

Eileen gave a sad smile.  "It didn't stop working."

"Okay," Ellen said, dragging out the last syllable before allowing her mouth to close.  "What then?"

Eileen did her best to explain everything they'd put together so far, making sure to include everything Ash had said downstairs.  Ellen's expression went from confused to lost to resigned.

"It couldn't just be something good, could it," she said, her expression flat.

"I'm sorry," Eileen said.  "It feels selfish to say, but it's been good to see you again, even if you're not the same you I knew."

Ellen shook her head.  "I guess my world has that going for it.  What about Jo?"

Eileen shook her head.

Ellen set her jaw.  "Then I definitely like my world better.  No offense."

"None taken."  Eileen sighed.  "None of this tells us how to get you home, though."

"Well, if it's an angel spell," Ellen said, "what about the one that angel used to send the boys to the world where their life's a television show?"

"Television show?  I thought that was one of Gabriel's tricks?" Eileen replied, confused.

"Yeah, their lives are weird enough that's not the only time they've gone through the tv screen."  Ellen's shoulders hitched with a small laugh.  "You'll have to ask Sam to tell you about that one.  Hope he remembers the recipe.  Oh, and Eileen?"

"Yeah?"

"Stop wasting time," Ellen said.  "Never know how much of it you've got.  Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go hug my daughter."

Eileen nodded, though she wasn't sure exactly what she was meant to do about any of that right now.  For the moment, she just followed Ellen back out of the kitchen and watched as she gave Jo a quick side hug and got back to serving customers, never straying far from Jo's side.

After a moment of that, she turned and went to join the others back downstairs.  Ellen would bring Jo up to speed soon enough.  She had the one piece of information she wanted:  Ellen, at least, wanted to go home.

 

~*~

 

"Huh, that spell?  I mean, obviously it's not what those two angels went for," Sam said, "but I guess it could work."

He wasn't sure how he felt about that.  He should be glad of it, right?  Getting everyone back to their own world might not be their usual goal, but it would be a win anyway.  Somehow it didn't feel like it though.

"So, what do we need?" Dean asked.  "Bone of a lesser saint was the fun one to get hold of, as I remember."

"Yeah, everything else was pretty straightforward," Sam said.  "Dead Sea brine, blood of lamb, those we've got.  What we don't have is unlimited credit to place international orders for crap like random saint relics."

"We don't need it," Jack said.  "Just tell me where to find it, and I can go get it."

"Great, we've turned you into a thief," Dean grumbled.  "Way to keep you on the light side of the Force."

"Lesser saints often weren't revered to the same extent as others," Cas said.  "I can think of several who are buried not far from here, in fact."

"Not sure grave robbing's a big improvement," Dean said, "but I guess I'll take it.  Not like they're using it anymore, right?  And if they were saints, lesser or not, they'd probably want to help people."

"Is that what it means to be a saint?" Jack asked.  He looked back and forth between each of them.  "Does that mean we're all saints?"

"Uh, sure," Sam said.  "Let's go with that for now."

"That's all you need?" Ash asked.  "What controls what world we end up in?  'Cause I might not care much, but I'd rather not end up in some world where the one difference is everyone breathes methane."

"And how does the Roadhouse go through with them?" Eileen asked.  She focused on Sam.  "Didn't you say Balthazar threw you?"

"I can help with that part," Cas said.  "It should be sufficient that all those we send through are returning to their original world.  But to be certain, I'll teach Mr. Ash, here, how to write out the equation of their world's signature frequency in Enochian."

"Pfft, if that's all we need, I can already do that," Ash said with a cocky grin.

Sam rolled his eyes.

"If those other two angels going through is what brought the Roadhouse here," Eileen said, "does that mean when we send it back they'll come back?"

"Nothing like that happened when Balthazar sent us to that other world," Sam said.

"That we know of," Dean cut in.  "We don't know what the hell happened to 'Jared' and 'Jensen' while we were in their world."

"And the walls separating worlds hadn't been weakened the way they have now," Cas added.  "Considering no one is in imminent danger, it is possible that it is not the best idea to proceed."

"I'm down with that," Ash said.  "But then, you knew that already.  We know Ellen wants to get back to our world.  What about Jo?"

Sam looked over at Eileen, who was chewing her lip thoughtfully.

"What?" Sam asked.

"I'm not sure," Eileen replied.  "We're doing a lot of guessing.  Maybe…maybe we need to find out for sure whether those other angels are still here first.  Is there any way to do that without making Cas a target?"

"We could summon them into a circle of holy fire," Cas said.  "We would all be targets, but they would be contained."

"Then what?" Ash asked.  "Tell campfire stories?  Correct me if I'm wrong, amigos, but isn't summoning pissed-off angels and trapping them like some John Dee level of stupid?"

"I would prefer not to kill them if they are not harming anyone," Cas said.  "There are few enough surviving angels as it is. Also, Zadkiel and Hadraniel were two of my best soldiers before Raphael killed them, at least in this world."

"No, I'm with you there," Sam agreed.

"That makes one of us," Dean grumbled.

"Dean, I'm good with ganking them if they're causing trouble," Sam said.  "But it'd be kind of hypocritical for us to go around killing angels just for being angels."

Dean held up his hands in surrender, but Sam noticed his eyes darted over quickly to Cas, then down to the floor.  Sam wondered what exactly he was thinking, but decided this wasn't the time to ask.

"They haven't been causing trouble," Eileen said, "and this world's versions of them were good guys.  Maybe it's worth taking a chance on just talking to them?"

Sam wasn't so sure about that.  There was no guarantee this alternate version of these angels would be similar to this world's.  And if their ritual had failed, they would almost certainly be starting off pissed.

"If their ritual went wrong," Eileen continued, "we need to know what they did and figure out why it didn't work before we go making things worse."

"Shit, you've got a point," Dean said.  He scrubbed a hand over his face. "Fine.  I'll get the holy oil."


	9. The Summoning

Sam dropped the match into the bowl of herbs and quickly backed out of the circle of holy oil, accepting the angel blade Eileen pressed into his hand.  To his right, Dean stood with his lighter in hand, ready to ignite the oil.  Ellen, Jo, and Ash were to Sam's left with Eileen, holding her own angel blade. Cas and Jack were to Dean's right, completing their semi circle.  The wall behind the circle of oil blocked entry or exit from that direction.

They were ready for just about anything, Sam figured.  The Roadhouse was closed, no civilians to worry about if it all went south, which it probably would.  Pissed off angels were the most likely outcome, but if they weren't pissed, well, that would be a bonus.  There was also the possibility they wouldn't show because they'd gone back to their own world.  There weren't a whole lot of other options that any of them could think of.

What they weren't prepared for (but probably should have been) was Billie.

When she appeared next to the summoning bowl, Dean flicked his lighter and dropped it onto the oil.  Flames sprung up in a circle around her.  With a roll of her eyes, Billie flicked a hand and the flames went back out, sending a chill down Sam's spine.

"Did you really think that would work?" she asked as she advanced on Dean.

"Apparently not," he said with a cocky shrug.  "Wasn't exactly expecting you, though."

Sam swallowed.  He ran everything they'd even known about Death through his brain, but they had nothing that was going to stop her.  Not unless she was more vulnerable than her predecessor had been.

"No?"  She cocked her head at him.  "You should have expected me.  Quite a while ago, in fact.  But I've been a bit... occupied.  It seems _someone_ couldn't pay attention to a very simple and straightforward warning."

Dean took a step backwards, bumping up against Ash's desk.  Sam saw Cas manifest his angel blade, but that wasn't going to do anything against her this time.  Not if she really was the new Death.

"You were warned to stop poking around other worlds," she said in a low and dangerous voice.  "I thought perhaps you might have understood the severity of the situation after our last meeting.  But even now, seeing what your cavalier attitude has wrought, you seek to cause further damage."

She whirled and faced Ellen, Jo, and Ash.  "I'm sorry, but you cannot return to your world."

"Why not?" Eileen asked.  "Wouldn't that restore the balance you want?"

Sam didn't like the way Billie's eyes narrowed at Eileen.

"You."  Billie shook her head.  "How are _you_ here?"

"What do you mean?" Eileen asked, confusion clearly written across her features.

Sam swallowed again, tightening his grip on his blade.  That was a question he hadn't wanted to ask.  If even Billie didn't know the answer, what the hell did that even mean?

Billie looked from Eileen to Sam, then to Dean, then Cas, finally focusing on Jack.

"You," she said.  "You're the wild card in all this, aren't you?  A child grabbing a crayon in his grubby little fist and scribbling all over the world trying to draw the perfect family portrait, but the problem is nobody ever taught you to color inside the lines."

"Who are you?" Jack asked.

"She's Death," Dean answered.  "So, what now?  You planning on killing us all?"

"I should," she replied, raising an eyebrow.  "I'm surrounded by people who aren't supposed to be alive, or even exist in some cases, at least not in this world.  Kinda sounds like my job description."

"You know we're not gonna just stand here and let you," Sam said.  He moved to put himself between Billie and Ellen, Jo, Ash, but most of all Eileen.  "Kinda sounds like our job description."

"I know you're going to be a pain in my ass," she retorted.  She stepped closer and looked him in the eye.  _"That's_ your job description.  And you know that if I wanted you all dead, you already would be."

She looked at each of them in turn, then swept her eyes over them in an arc, taking in the Roadhouse.  Whatever she was thinking, it didn't show on her face.  If anything, she was even more inscrutable than her predecessor.  Sam swallowed.

"This place is actually doing a decent job patching this particular tear," she said at last.  "Think I'll leave it."

"Are we supposed to thank you?" Ellen asked, her voice bitter.

"Nobody thanks Death," Billie said with a sad smile.  "Good thing I don't care."

"I think you do," Dean said.  "Otherwise you wouldn't even be here.  We didn't summon you.  You decided to show up."

"What I care about is maintaining the balance," she said, her attention focused behind Sam.  "As much of a pain in my ass as you all are, you do have your uses, if you'd just grow up already."

"What use do you have in mind for us this time?" Sam asked.  Was she actually going to leave them all as they were?  Would that turn out to be worse than the alternative?

"Same as when I sent your brother back the last time," she replied.  She stepped back and looked over at Jack.  "Clean up your mess, little boy.  Preferably without making a worse one this time."

"Yeah?" Dean asked.  "You got any helpful tips for that?  'Cause if the walls between the worlds are turning into Swiss cheese, we've got a slight archangel issue to worry about."

"I see the problem," she said, "not the solution.  That's still…murky.  What I can say is that you have all that you need."

"What's that supposed to…?"  Sam started as she disappeared.  "What the hell?"

He turned at the feel of a hand on his arm.

"Sam," Eileen asked, "what did she mean about me being here?"

Sam's heart ricocheted between exultation, relief that she wasn't about to be ripped away again, and heartbreak at what he was going to have to tell her.

"Looks like we're staying," Ellen said.  "Guess I should go get back to work then."

"I was thinking more like it was time for another round of PBR," Ash said.

"You always think it's time for another round of PBR."  Jo rolled her eyes and turned to leave, dragging Ash behind her.

"Eileen," Ellen said, "remember what we talked about."

Eileen nodded, and Sam wondered what that meant.

"Uh, so we'll just…yeah."  Dean put a hand on Cas' and Jack's shoulders and guided them to the door leading back upstairs. 

Once they were gone, Sam tried to figure out how to explain.  It wasn't like he entirely knew what had happened.  Not really.  Before he could say a word, Eileen was surging forward to grab his face in her hands, pulling him down to her and bringing their lips together.


	10. Resolution

Kissing Sam was everything she could have imagined and nothing like she'd expected.  His cheeks were like sandpaper, his lips were chapped, and it was amazing.  After what seemed like an eternity and split second all at once, they pulled apart, and he blinked at her.  Then his hands were on her waist as he leaned in to kiss her again, his throat vibrating under her palms and tears falling on her fingertips.

This time when they pulled apart, she looked into his eyes and asked, "That wasn't a dream about the hellhound, was it?"

He closed his eyes and shook his head, fresh tears spilling onto his cheeks.

A chill ran down Eileen's spine.  So she had died, then.  She hadn't been able to make out what Billie had said to Jack, as she'd turned her back on Eileen, but it seemed clear that she thought he had brought her back.

"I'm here now," she said, finally, "and I'm not going anywhere."

Sam pulled her close and buried his face in her hair.  She could feel the sobs wracking his body.  What had it been like for him, she wondered, to all of a sudden receive that Skype call from her?  He'd looked surprised, but she'd expected him to when she said why she was calling.  He often got bashful at the start of their conversations, so she hadn't noticed how long it took for him to jump in.  Now it seemed so obvious that he had been in shock.

Tears welled in her eyes at the thought of how he must have felt.  Thinking he was talking to a doppelganger of some kind.  She realized she should probably be freaking out more over the part where she'd been dead.  Maybe that would sink in later.  When his breathing evened out and they pulled apart, she had an idea.

"We need a code," she said.  "So if you ever think I'm not me again, or I think you're not you, we can be sure."

"I knew it was you," he said.  "I was afraid to believe it, but I think I knew."

Eileen smiled.  She liked to think she'd always know him, too, but with their job being what it was, there were no guarantees.  A glance at the kegs off to the side of the room gave her just the idea she needed.

"Beer," she said and showed him the sign.

"You want a beer?"  Sam laughed.  "Yeah, I guess I could use one too."

"No, I mean that's our code.  Because of everything that just happened here."  She showed him the sign again.

He gave it a try and ended up saying "brown" instead.  With a smile, she shifted his hand closer to his chin, and he got it.

"I guess no one would expect that to be our code word," he said.  "Dean's maybe, but not ours."

Eileen laughed.  "True."

There were at least two situations in which it wouldn't work, but she felt better just for having it.  Something that was just theirs.

"Now you have me wanting that beer," she said.  "You ready to deal with the others?"

He dried his face with his hands and said, "Yeah, I think so.  Don't think I want to hang around too long though."

"One drink and call it a night?" she asked.  "I'm good with that."

Neither of them made a move toward the door, though.

"I'm not gonna want to let you out of my sight for awhile," he said.

"I'm good with that too," she said.

He turned his head and yelled something over his shoulder, then turned back to face her.

"Sorry.  Guess we should get up there," he said.

Eileen scooped up the summoning bowl and dumped its contents into the bucket next to Ash's desk.  Sam raised his eyebrows at that.

"I think Ellen's going to want her mixing bowl back," Eileen said, tucking the bowl under her arm.  "C'mon.  Let's go."

Sam gestured for her to go up the stairs first.  Eileen rolled her eyes but went ahead and led the way back to join the others.  When they got to the group, the first thing she did was go over to Jack.

"Did you bring me back?" she asked.

"I don't know," he admitted.  "I think maybe?  Sam was sad about you the way Dean was sad about Castiel, and I wanted them not to be sad.  I'm not sure if I could have done it on purpose."

"Thank you," Eileen said.  "For bringing me back and for wanting Sam not to be sad."

"Um, okay," Jack replied.

"The correct response is 'you're welcome,'" Cas said, coming over to sit next to Jack.

"Right."  Jack nodded.  "You're welcome."

Eileen accepted the beer Sam handed her, tapping her glass against his first and then everyone else's before taking a drink.  She noticed Jack had a beer too and seemed to enjoy it.

"Aren't you a little young for that?" she asked.

A tap on her arm had her turning back to Ellen, who said, "People who bring friends back from the dead get a beer, no questions asked."

"I guess that's fair," Eileen agreed.

Sam was still watching her very closely, she realized.  She nodded toward one of the tables and stepped away from the group.  It took him a second, but he joined her.  For a moment, they both just drank their beers and didn’t say anything.

“What do you think you want to do next?” Sam asked finally.

That was the question.  

“Normally, I’d just look for another case,” she admitted.

“We can do that back at the bunker,” Sam suggested.  “I mean, unless you don’t want…”

“I want,” she said, and covered his hands with hers.  It had felt too soon before.  Maybe it still was.  She decided she didn’t care.

Sam pulled his hands free and asked, “Ready to help us hunt a Prince of Hell?”

Eileen grinned.  She looked over at their friends.  Dean was bent over laughing at something Cas had said.  Ellen was talking to Jack, and Jo and Ash just looked amused.  Billie said none of them were meant to be here, but it felt right.  She looked back at Sam and grinned.

“I was born ready.”

  



End file.
